MOVED
I have moved. I know, no big deal to you but talk about disruption. Holy shit;
CHAOS!
From a townhouse in Cambridge, MA to an apartment in Belmont 20 minutes away, into a different world.
An apartment complex w/parking garage, pool, gym, movie theatre, business center and repairs just a call away. Nice. New. No worrying about the roof, replacing the furnace or fixing the broken screen on the back door. Odd, as usually the progression is the young are in an apartment, then, as they get older, then buy a house. I am doing just the opposite. Like I said, a little chaotic.
Why all this? Here comes the answer to your question
"I thought this was a photo blog?"
This is logistical but still relevant: great studio nearby serving as the archive for the work made over my career but paying huge rent each month and all these 27 years living in a small space where it is not possible to put the two together. That's the plan, to sell the townhouse, find a space where I can put my work with my living space and let the studio go. Part 1 is now complete as I have sold and moved out. The second phase, the finding and moving into enough square feet to get rid of the studio, has not, hence the apartment. A one-year hiatus and this thing is definitely turning into a multiyear project. Time to take a breath, time to travel (to photograph!) and time to look for the longer-term solution. I know, not exactly downsizing, which is what most are doing at my age, but change is often good and I believe this one is going to be.
The disruption has meant my work has taken a hit this summer and I am sorry for that. I did good work earlier in Spruce Pine and Menemsha.
Spruce Pine, North Carolina 2018
Menemsha, MA 2018
Let's see what happens as things stabilize a little.
Thanks for coming along.
Related series
Menemsha 2018
Made in the early summer of 2018 of the small fishing village on Martha's Vineyard called Menemsha.
To contact the photographer about these photographs or any others on the site please email Neal Rantoul directly at:
nrantoul@comcast.net
Penland, North Carolina 2012
These photographs were made in late June and early July 2012 on a trip from Boston, where I live, to teach at Penland School of Crafts near Spruce Pine in North Carolina. I drove down there and back, photographing some along the way, but mostly photographed in the small town of Spruce Pine and near to Penland. Each morning at 6:30, often with two or three students along, we would spend a couple of hours photographing in Spruce Pine. The idea of coming back to someplace to photograph, to study it and one’s results from the previous day seemed to resonate with the students and it certainly did for me. Spruce Pine is small, bifurcated into older and newer parts and reflects present day US economics and hard times. It has a railroad that goes right through it, sits in a valley alongside a river and is lush in late June with dark green foliage.
Working this way in North Carolina brought me back to days in my deeper past. There were many road trips spent photographing, sometimes alone, sometimes with friends, sometimes with students, pulling over in some little town, walking and shooting what I saw and what seemed worth trying to make into a picture.
Of note here to other photographers is that this is the first group of pictures I have made with a new camera, a Nikon D800E. This is always a love/hate relationship for me, getting used to how a new camera works, how it sees and imposes itself on what I want it to do. No one wants to be stumbling with buttons and controls while taking pictures and, as cameras are now very complex, it takes me a while to feel comfortable with its newness and being unfamiliar.
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